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Just a warning to anyone considering using the Kindle device or buying Kindle books to read via Kindle-for-PC: there are (at least) 2 critical limitations that will prove extremely frustrating if you read books for educational or scholarly purposes.
1 – There are no page numbers included in the text. Kindle uses “locations” that are relative to the size of the font you’ve selected for reading. I’m not sure why they decided not to include the page numbers from the published, dead-tree edition of the books alongside the text. In practical terms, this means that students who choose to use kindle editions of books or textbooks for class will be somewhat screwed when the professor says to “turn to page 120,” as they have no way to identify the corresponding “location” on the Kindle.
Similarly, if you need to communicate an idea or passage to a colleague, the typical method is to cite the page number on which the relevant passage occurs. Think about writing a paper for a college class, for example. Without page numbers, there’s no way to properly cite the information.
2 – This may not be a universal flaw, but it applies to the text that I downloaded for Kindle-for-PC: The index page is not really useful. In fact, the text is much smaller than the rest of the book (it doesn’t change according to my font size preferences like the rest of the book), which makes it nearly impossible to even read the index. But the index also lists page numbers, not Kindle locations, so there’s no way to tell where I should “turn” to in my Kindle edition to reach the topic of interest.

For users who are interested in reading for pleasure, these probably are not deal-breakers. But for academic users, caveat emptor.

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